[mtts]

Indeed. And most slavery in the world today is extremely complicated (in order to make it less obvious that it is in fact slavery) and nasty, making the slavery discussed in this article almost seem benign by comparison: it's out in plain view, it involves black people and it takes place in a backwards country far, far away.

Much different from, say, indentured servants in Dubai, Eastern European prostitutes or illegal immigrants in Europe.

[mattdeboard]

Did you actually read the article? "benign" doesn't belong in the same dictionary as the words that should be used to describe the slavery described in it.

[mtts]

If you look up what gets covered by the relatively innocuous term "Human trafficking" you'll find it can get much, much worse.

[randallsquared]

It appears that a terrible consequence of redefining prostitution or immigration law as "slavery" is that it may lead to regarding the original, actual slavery as "benign by comparison".

[mtts]

"Illegal immigrants" : forced to work off their debts to the people who smuggled them into Europe, usually in illegal sweat shops or worse:

"Eastern European prostitutes" : a subset of illegal immigrants who are forced to work as sex slaves.